Organize and back up your data

Knowing where your data is on your computer is extremely important for at least two reasons:
1 - You will find it much easier to find and handle your own information, financial data, photos, music and other files.
2- Backing up your data (which you should do regularly) is going to be a snap.

When you install a new application (program) in your Windows PC, in most cases the software will set up a data sub-folder under its own folder or directory. This will result in having your data sitting in various locations on your hard disk, all over the place.
You do not have to accept the default location, but when it asks you for the location for your data, it is better to define it such that you can very easily locate and access it.

The best way of doing it is to have one DATA folder on the root directory of your C: drive, such as C:\DATA.

Make all your application programs save their respective data into this folder, for example, for your Quicken data: C:\DATA\Quickendata\ or C:\DATA\Photos, etc.

You will not have to worry about finding your data with this method.

It is never too late to reorganize your PC even if you already have a “messy” system. Just copy or move your data to your centralized “DATA” location and have your application program open it from there and - on exit - save it there.

We all have heard horror stories about people losing years of important data when their computer crashed or their hard disk died.

Since the cost of external storage media (drives) has come down to very affordable levels recently, there is no excuse for not owning at least one, but preferably more, external storage devices, such as USB hard disk drives and/or FLASH drives.
Installing them is as easy as plugging them into an available USB port or socket.
As they are P-n-P or Plug-and-Play, they will automatically install their driver(s) on your computer.

Many of these units come with their own very simple back-up software which will ask you about the location of the files you want to back up.
They will also keep track of what data files changed since the last back-up and will only back-up the ones that are different from the previously saved files.
Alternatively, if you are a just a little computer savvy, you can just drag-and-drop your files or the entire DATA folder onto the external drive.

Keep one of these drives near or connected to your computer and another one in a fire safe. Once a month you should burn a DVD or CD with your data on it and label and store it in a safe place.

Questions? Call or email peter@ligeti.com or 408-528-8422